The Onion’s A.V. Club sat down with Bob Balaban to discuss his experience of working with an auteur and selections from his four-decade career, including when he worked as a translator both on- and off-screen for Francois Truffaut during Close Encounters.
This part especially charmed us:
AVC: There does seem to be a lot of Truffaut in Moonrise Kingdom.
BB: That’s what I thought. I didn’t think of it when I read it, but when I saw the movie, it just leapt out at me. The formality of the movie did not let me see it earlier than that, but when I saw the movie all together, I went, “Truffaut.” I was really sad Truffaut wasn’t watching it, because he would have just been crazy for that seven-minute scene on the island with the boy and the girl. That was Truffaut in a nutshell, the seriousness of kids and the respect you have to give them when you’re dealing with them or portraying them. The not talking down, the specificity of young love, which nobody ever gets, really.
Read the rest of the article over at the A.V. Club.